The Present
by The Lillie
Summary: Jamie the mailman was left in the water, chuckling sheepishly. "I, um—this is awkward," he admitted. "I-I seem to still be paralyzed." (Directly following Are You My Dad/I Am My Mom)
1. tomorrow is a mystery

Sadie was the first one to snap out of the shock.

"Okay, um—" she said, panic edging her voice while her face seemed calm. "Okay! Guys, we can manage this! We can—we can find a way to save them, okay? Um—Garnet, you're like the leader here, right?"

Garnet was still for a second. Then she lifted her chin.

"Right!" she declared. "Humans, get home and dry off. Make sure your families know you're safe."

"Yes, ma'am." Sadie nodded and took the hands of the two children beside her, tugging them toward the beach. "I-I'll make sure that Greg and Lars's parents know what's going on, too."

"Good. Amethyst, Pearl, tell Peridot and Lapis to get to work. We're going to save Steven."

Pearl didn't move. Amethyst grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the water.

"Wait, I'm going with them!" Connie insisted, yanking away from Sadie.

"Hey, wait, I think you still count as a human!" Sadie tried to pull her back.

"But I'm a Crystal Gem, too!" Connie cried. "Aren't I, Garnet?"

"It's too dangerous," Garnet said.

"I don't care! I _have_ to help Steven!"

"Your parents are terrified as it is."

Connie gritted her teeth, glare hard, but then stepped back to run after Sadie. "I'll meet you at the barn after I tell them what's going on!"

She wouldn't. Her parents wouldn't let her. She'd try to convince them, sure, she'd even lie and try to make them think the situation would be less dire than it was. It wouldn't work.

So the humans were safe. Good. Garnet waded to the edge of the water. She'd warp straight to the barn and take charge of their new project. A spaceship would be a lot more difficult to build than a drill, but none of them were going to give up until—

"Um, Garnet?"

Garnet turned. Jamie the mailman was left in the water, chuckling sheepishly.

"I, um—this is awkward," he admitted. "I-I seem to still be paralyzed."

Wordlessly, Garnet walked back over to Jamie and picked him up, one arm across his back and the other under his knees.

"Oh, um—" Jamie blushed. "Thanks, I, uh—"

"You've moved on."

"I know, I have, it's just—sorry. I'm fine, I just—" He trailed off. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Yes," Garnet answered automatically.

"I mean, Steven's like—he's kinda like your son. And he just got abducted by aliens."

"We're going to rescue him."

"Heh." Jamie smiled. "Hard work and determination. Erm—you can put me down now."

Garnet dropped Jamie onto the beach. He landed with a _flump_ and an "oof", then quickly jumped up and brushed sand off his clothes.

"Is there—" He cleared his throat. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can finish your duty to the town," Garnet replied. "The first thing Steven'll want to do when he gets home—"

 _If he gets home._

"—is try on his new khakis."

Jamie brightened. "That's right, he's got a package from Distinguished Boy!" He struck a pose, one hand on his hip and the other pointing dramatically skyward. "As our hero adventures in the distant cosmos, his indebted citizens and fashionable trousers will wait faithfully behind, anticipating his triumphant return!"

His pose faltered a little as he realized, "Man, we are indebted. Steven just gave himself up for us." He looked at Garnet. "He saved all of us."

It wasn't a new statement. Garnet recalled a falling ocean, a daring jailbreak, a trusting Peridot, a bubbled Cluster.

"He's saved the whole planet more than once," Garnet said.

"I'm honestly not surprised. He's an impressive kid. I know I wasn't saving the world when I was fourteen." He shrugged. "Heck, I'm not even saving the world at twenty-seven."

Garnet rested her hands on her hips. "We can't all fight monsters. Someone's got to deliver the mail and star in the shows."

"That is true." Jamie grinned, but remaining shyness kept the smile from filling his whole face. "Thanks, Garnet. I guess I'll just...walk home now. Finish delivering the mail in the morning."

He turned, but hesitated. Garnet watched. She didn't need to use her future vision to see that he was nervous. He had just been kidnapped and almost killed by a huge and terrifying force far beyond his understanding, after all, and now he'd be walking alone to an empty home. If she did use her future vision, she could see him shaking the whole way and jumping at every shadow. But she could also see him being a little braver if she offers:

"I can go with you if you like."

"Oh, w-what? No, no, that's okay," Jamie excused hurriedly, waving his hands. "I'll be fine, I'll—you don't even know where I live, so—"

"Lead the way."

"Um." Jamie wrapped his arms around himself, his mouth reluctantly tilting up. "Thanks."

* * *

They talked as they walked. Well, Jamie talked. Not a continuous, coherent conversation, just on-and-off small talk between stretches of silence. The sort of packages he had to deliver tomorrow, the hope that his cat (who was named Antigone, after that very famous very important classical Greek tragedy, he was careful to inform her) hadn't gotten into any trouble while he was gone, the wonder if his landlord would accept rent late on the excuse of an alien abduction.

"Though they probably wouldn't believe me," he confessed. "I might have used that story last time." He turned to Garnet. "Those _were_ aliens, right? Not...cyborgs or hyperintelligent humanoid monsters or something?"

"Yep," Garnet said.

They took a few more steps down the sidewalk, his eyes still on her.

"Are _you_ an alien?"

"Yep."

"Oh." He dropped his gaze. "You were right. I really don't know who you are."

Garnet didn't respond, except by stopping and saying, "We're here."

Jamie looked up at his apartment building. "Ah. So we are."

"You'll be safe for the rest of the night," Garnet said.

"Thanks," Jamie replied. "I, um—thanks. Thank you." He glanced at the door and shrugged. "Do you want—do you want to come in and have a snack or something? Some...some tea?"

"I don't eat."

"Right, alien. Um…" He bit his lip, searching for something more to say. "Good luck saving Steven. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help."

Garnet nodded. "Thank you."

"Goodnight, then."

She raised one hand in acknowledgement of the farewell, and waited to let him be the first to turn away. She kept waiting until she saw his bedroom light turn on before she pivoted and started back toward the beach.

* * *

She passed by a half-collapsed mound of sand in front of the temple. The remains of the sand castle she and Pearl had built that morning, now washed away by tide and time. It felt like that morning was thousands of years ago, now…

 _We should have seen this coming._

Garnet frowned.

 _We did see this coming, we should have done something, we should have done more—_

 _Nothing we can do will help this, nothing we can do will change this—_

 _We failed him! We put him in danger!_

 _We won't be able to save him, we won't ever see him again, they'll hurt him they'll kill him they'll torture him they'll harvest him they'll shatter him and WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO—_

"Stop it," she said aloud.

A wave crashed on the beach a little harder than the ones before it. The sand castle was almost gone now.

Garnet clenched her fists. "We _are_ going to save him."


	2. yesterday is history

Jamie closed the door behind him and leaned against it. It took him a second before he remembered to turn the light on.

"I'm ho-ome," he called. "Did you miss me, Antigone?"

The cat didn't respond. She was probably hanging out under the bed and couldn't hear him or something.

Jamie glanced out the window. He couldn't see Garnet. She must have leapt away to go save Steven right away.

He stood and wandered toward the bathroom. He'd have to take a long, hot shower—being stuck inside a giant alien's body for a full day and then getting tossed into the ocean hadn't exactly done good things for his aroma. He grimaced. Geez, had he really walked all the way home smelling like this next to Garnet?

No, Garnet didn't care what he smelled like. She just cared about…

What _did_ Garnet care about?

Jamie shook his head and turned on the shower, testing the water with his hand. Man, he _really_ didn't know anything about Garnet, even now. He really had been pretty stupid to have gotten such an intense crush so quickly. But of course, he was older and wiser and more mature now. He was perfectly capable of having a completely platonic acquaintanceship with a still-pretty-attractive-but-whatever defender-of-the-city from outer space without getting flustered and awkward all the time.

As soon as the water seemed to be a reasonable temperature, Jamie undressed and stepped into the stream, closing the curtain beside him. His hair flopped over his eyes, and he didn't bother to push it up until he had a palmful of shampoo. Lather, scrub, rinse, repeat, get out all the sweat and saltwater and make his hair nice again. He did have nice hair, after all.

Absentmindedly, he cupped one hand around the back of his head. It didn't cover much, even with his fingers spread as wide as they would go. He couldn't even reach either ear without moving his hand to the side. Were his hands really that small? Or was his head just big? Or maybe it was just that everyone's hands were that small, especially compared to—

Especially compared to the other hand that had been on his head that day. Just a couple hours ago.

" _Our orders were to bring back these six humans—I'm just not sure...did they specify, 'alive'?"_

That hand was big. That hand covered the whole back of his head and more. That hand put the heel on the base of his neck and the fingers all the way around to dig into his face. That hand—

" _You know, I don't think they did!"_

That hand almost killed him.

Jamie slid his own hand down to his mouth, clawing at his cheeks in a vain attempt to stop shaking. Oh, God, he almost died today. He almost _died._ He almost got his head crushed in a giant fist, by a giant alien who wouldn't have thought twice about doing it. He almost got killed in a terrible, terrible way. He'd always wanted his death to be peacefully in bed after a long career, or maybe dramatically and poetically on stage while valiantly fighting for the show to go on—what poetry would there be in your skull imploding under uncaring fingers? He almost died with no warning, no show, no heroism, no way to possibly explain to his family—

His knees wobbled, and he slowly sank to the shower floor.

He almost died. He almost died. And it would have been sudden and gruesome and ugly and _painful_ and the only reason he survived was because Steven, happy chubby optimistic fourteen-year-old Steven, stopped them by giving himself up.

And then again, once the hand was removed—he almost got taken into flipping outer space, never to return home, who knows where they were going who knows what would have happened to him there—and again, Steven saved them by sacrificing himself.

After a moment Jamie realized he was sitting in the shower without doing anything. He turned off the water, but didn't get up.

He sat for a while, shaking.

 _I almost died. I almost died._

Tears began to flow. He buried his hands in his wet hair.

 _And Steven saved me—he saved all of us. And now he's in danger and there's nothing I can do to help and if—if he fails whatever he's doing and those people come back—_

"Maow."

Jamie looked up.

He wiped his eye and pulled open the curtain. His little brown cat was sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor, head cocked a little to the side.

"Oh," Jamie croaked. "Th-there you are."

Antigone lifted off her haunches and padded over to the edge of the tub, stretching her head up for him to scratch. He complied mostly on instinct.

Her fur was really soft. He'd noticed that at the shelter when he decided to adopt her—she had the softest fur there. Somehow he forgot exactly how soft that was every time he petted her.

"You've been doing okay today, right?" he asked.

"Mrrp," Antigone replied, pushing her head a little harder against his fingers.

"No, you can't get in the tub. You'll get all wet." He sniffed. "But...I guess I can finish cleaning up in the morning." A little smirk. "Barb'll probably understand if I come in a bit late, right?"

Antigone didn't respond, but she didn't need to. Jamie stood carefully and grabbed a towel.

Once he was all dry and clad in his bathrobe, Antigone followed him into the bedroom. He poured some food into her empty dish, made sure she had a good amount of water, checked her litter box—eh, that one was another thing he could do in the morning.

"We can't all have it together all the time," he mused to himself.

Antigone rubbed her side against his leg and purred in agreement.

He crawled into bed, lying on his side, and AntIgone curled up against his stomach. Her mass was warm and comforting; the arch of her spine lined right up along the curve of his belly. He bent his neck a little to touch the tip of his nose to the top of her head.

 _I almost died today_.

He bit his tongue, eyes stinging.

 _Steven saved us. And now he might die._

He closed his eyes.

For a few minutes he lay in his bed and quietly cried. His little brown cat stayed close, warm and soft and sure, and didn't leave his arms for the rest of the night.


End file.
